The Department of Psychology requires students in Psychology 101 to become more familiar with psychological research either by serving as participants in research studies, attending Psychology Department colloquia, or by writing brief reports on articles in psychological journals or on the Internet.

The requirement for the Summer 2015 semester is two (2) research credits. You may earn research credit in one of four ways:

1. Participating in a research study

You earn one research credit for every hour (or part of an hour) that you participate in a study. Studies can last anywhere from one to four hours (4 one-hour studies would earn you 4 credits).

You earn one research credit for each colloquium hosted by the Psychology Department.

3. Writing a brief report paper on a published journal article

You earn one research credit for each brief report paper written on a published article from a specified Psychology-related journal.

4. Writing a brief report paper on an article from an online source

You earn one research credit for each brief report paper written on a specified Psychology-related article from the Internet. A list of allowable articles can be found below.

You can combine the four methods to complete your credits – e.g., participating in two 1-hour studies, attending one colloquium, and writing one research report would earn you a total of four credits. The way you get your credits is up to you. However…

Students who have not completed the research requirement by the last day of classes will receive a grade of Incomplete for Psychology 101, and will have to complete the requirement during the following semester in order to receive course credit. **Please note that the “research credits” you earn for the research requirement are different from the credits that the course is worth.**

Regardless of how you decide to fulfill the research requirement, ALL STUDENTS ARE REQUIRED TO REGISTER FOR AN ACCOUNT ON OUR ONLINE TRACKING SYSTEM.

Registering for an Account (ALL STUDENTS MUST DO THIS!)
All students must register for an account on our online tracking system. All credits completed towards your research requirement will be indicated in your account. Your account will be viewed and monitored by your PSYCH 101 instructor. If you have not completed all the required credits towards the requirement by the last day of classes, you will receive an Incomplete for the course. Here are the instructions to register for an account.

2. On the bottom left you will see a “New Participant?” link. Click on “Request an account here.”

3. Fill in your name and email address. Choose a username that is easy to remember (e.g. Jane Doe might choose “janedoe” or “jdoe”).

4. Under “Course,” find your instructor’s name and the semester in which you are taking the course. For example, if your instructor for Spring 2015 is Dr. Smith, you would select SPRING15 Smith.” (If you are fulfilling an Incomplete from a previous semester, please choose your past instructor and corresponding semester as opposed to the current semester.)

It is very important that you select the CORRECT INSTRUCTOR AND SEMESTER from this list, otherwise your credits will not be visible to your instructor and they will give you an Incomplete for the course.

5. Click on Request Account.

6. Your username and a password will be emailed to you immediately. (If not, please check your Spam folder and make sure to allow notifications from queenscollege-admin@sona-systems.net).

7. Log-in with your username and password as they were sent to you (you can change your password after you log-in).

8. The system will prompt you to answer a series of demographic questions. You can maximize your eligibility for research studies if you complete these questions. If you choose not to complete the questions, you will only be eligible for those studies that have no eligibility criteria. If you choose to complete the questions, once you do so, click on “Submit Pre-test”.

9. You will now be at the Welcome Page. You may want to

CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD to something you can remember more easily. To change your password, click on “change your password” under the “My Profile” section.

and log-in with your username and password. **If you have FORGOTTEN your password, click on the “Lost your Password?” link**

2. Click on the “STUDY SIGN UP” section. You will see a list of studies with open timeslots. You can click on any experiment to read more about it, or to sign-up. (Note: You may find no experiments available when you check the web site. Don’t panic. Experiments are posted on the web all semester as they become available. Sometimes this is not for a week or so into the semester. Try to make a habit of logging in as frequently as possible throughout the semester to check for open experiments).

3. To sign up for an experiment, click on the experiment name. You will see a description of the experiment and slots for signing up. You can sign up for any slot that is not already closed. Sometimes experimenters may ask you to contact them by email to arrange a specific appointment. Be sure to carefully read the material accompanying each experiment. NOTE: You may participate only one time in a specific experiment.

4. WRITE DOWN the date, time and location of the time slot that you sign up for, and the contact information for the researcher running the study. If you forget, you can go back into the system and click on the MY SCHEDULE tab to see the information. After you sign up for an experiment, it will be listed as “Awaiting Action from Researcher.” This section will change to reflect the number of credits you have received,

after you participate in the experiment.

STEP 2: DO the Experiment

1. You may cancel an appointment without penalty up to 24 hours before the study by clicking the “CANCEL” button under the MY SCHEDULE tab. If for some reason you have an emergency and you have to cancel within 24 hours of the appointment, please email the researcher directly. The researcher’s email can be found under “STUDY INFORMATION,” by clicking on the name of the study in the MY SCHEDULE tab.

2. Be sure to arrive on time for your appointment. If you fail to show up for an appointment without canceling with the researcher in advance, an email is automatically sent to the Study Pool Administrator.

If you fail to show up for two appointments without cancelling in advance, your account will be de-activated, and you will have to complete the research requirement by writing papers. If your account is de-activated, do not try to register for a second account on Sona using a different email address: this will show up on your instructor’s roster as a duplicate name, and any credits you earn with your second account

WILL BE IGNORED.

3. You may cancel an appointment up to 24 hours before the study by clicking the “CANCEL” button under the MY SCHEDULE tab. If for some reason you have an emergency and you have to cancel within 24 hours of the appointment, please email the researcher directly. The researcher’s email can be found under “STUDY INFORMATION,” by clicking on the name of the study in the MY SCHEDULE tab.

4. After you participate in a study, the researcher will issue your earned credit online. You can track your study credits at any time by clicking on the MY SCHEDULE/CREDITS Tab. Don’t worry if you don’t see the credit right away; please give the researcher two days to enter your credit in the system. Remember, up to one hour of participation time = 1 credit, more than one hour = 2 credits, more than two hours = 3 credits.

If you have any questions about your participation in an experiment, contact your instructor or the Subject Pool Administrator, Dr. Justin Storbeck, at justin.storbeck@qc.cuny.edu. DO NOT ask the department secretaries about the subject pool.

1. You are entitled to have the nature of your participation explained before you agree to participate.

2. Participation in studies is completely voluntary. If anything about an experiment makes you feel uncomfortable, or you feel that you do not want to continue, you are free to decline to participate, to end participation at any time, or to refuse to answer any individual question. If you feel you must end your participation, you will receive credit equivalent to the time you have completed.

3. You may request that the data from your participation be destroyed. You will still receive credit for participating.

4. You are entitled to have the experiment explained to you after you participate.

5. If you arrive on time for an appointment but the experimenter is not there, you should inform Dr. Claudia Brumbaugh (the Subject Pool Administrator). You can email her at claudia.brumbaugh@qc.cuny.edu, or leave a note in her mailbox in the department office SB-E318. Include the name of the study, the time and date of your appointment, and your phone number.6. If you feel that your rights have been violated in any way or you have any questions about your participation, you may contact Dr. Brumbauggh

The Psychology Department frequently hosts colloquia, or talks, by scientists about the research that they do. These speakers can be faculty or students from Queens College, or can be researchers from external institutions. You will receive one research credit for every colloquium that you attend. Below are the instructions on how to use the online system to sign up for colloquia, and what you need to do to receive credit for your attendance:

STEP 1: SIGN UP for a colloquium

1. If you are not already logged-in, go to http://queenscollege.sona-systems.com and log-in with your username and password. **If you have FORGOTTEN your password, click on the “Lost your Password?” link**

2. Click on the “STUDY SIGN UP” section.

3. If there are colloquia that have available time slots, you will see them in the list of studies: all colloquia will be named in the format “Psychology Department Colloquium: (name of colloquium)”, for example, one might be called “Psychology Department Colloquium: Spatial Updating in Human Cortex”. (NOTE: if you do not see any colloquia in the list of available studies, it means that there are presently no available time slots for any of the colloquia. Time slots are added to the system as colloquia are scheduled. Make a habit of logging in frequently to check for open slots.) To sign up for a colloquium, click on ‘Time Slots Available,’ then ‘View time slots for this study.’ You can sign up for any slot that is not already closed. NOTE: You CANNOT sign up for the same colloquium more than once, however, you CAN sign up for more than one (i.e. different) colloquium.

4. WRITE DOWN the date, time and location of the time slot that you sign up for, and the contact information for the researcher running the colloquia. If you forget, you can go back into the system and click on the MY SCHEDULE tab to see the information. After you sign up for a colloquium, it will be listed as “Awaiting Action from Researcher.” This section will change to reflect the number of credits you have received, after you attend the colloquium (see below).

STEP 2: ATTEND the colloquium

1. Be sure to arrive a few minutes before the colloquium begins.

Students arriving more than five minutes late will NOT receive credit for the colloquium. Before the colloquium starts, someone will introduce a designated contact person (someone attending the colloquium, either a faculty member or a graduate student) who has a list of students who have signed up to attend the colloquium. You must sign-in with this designated person before the talk begins, and sign-out with this person after the talk ends by showing him/her your student ID. Once you have done this, you can expect to receive credit for the colloquium within the next few days.

2. You may cancel an appointment up to 24 hours before the colloquium by clicking the “CANCEL” button under the MY SCHEDULE tab. Although there is no penalty if you do not attend a colloquium for which you sign up, it is courteous to cancel in advance so that someone else can sign up for your time slot. If for some reason you have an emergency and you have to cancel within 24 hours of the appointment, please email the researcher directly so that she can free up your time slot. The researcher’s email can be found under “STUDY INFORMATION,” by clicking on the name of the study in the MY SCHEDULE tab.

3. After you attend the colloquium and checked in and out with the designated contact person, your earned credit will be issued online. You can track your completed credits at any time by clicking on the MY SCHEDULE/CREDITS Tab. Don’t worry if you don’t see the credit right away; please give the researcher two days to enter your credit in the system. You will receive 1 credit for each colloquium that you attend.

If you have not already done so, please register for an account. Psychologists publish articles describing their research studies in periodicals called journals. In order to write your report, you will have to locate and read one article for each report. You will receive one credit for each completed report. Many journals contain articles that are quite lengthy and complex. Because you are new to psychology, you will be using journals that have relatively short articles. These journals are Psychological Reports and Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Your Psychology 101 instructor will tell you which issues of these journals you may use for your report (for example, you may be told to use only articles published in 2014). These journals are available online through the QC Library (under Research – Electronic Journals). Each journal volume contains a number of individual issues. The titles of the articles in each issue are listed on the front of the issue. Try to choose an article that looks interesting to you.

Each report should include the following:

1. The exact citation for the article, including its title, author(s), and journal issue.

2. An explanation of what the research was trying to find out.

3. A description of the methods that were used in the research.

4. A summary of the results.

5. Your evaluation of the paper, including what you learned from it.

6. A photocopy of the article.

Your reports should be two to three pages long, typewritten or word-processed, and double-spaced. This report should be turned in to your Psychology 101 instructor.

You should keep a copy for your records.

You can track your research credits at any time by logging into the Sona System and clicking on the MY SCHEDULE/CREDITS Tab. Don’t worry if you don’t see the credit right away; please give your instructor some time to read your paper.

Articles about psychology-related experiments are frequently posted on the Internet. Below is a list of URLs of articles grouped by topic on which you can write these reports. Choose one URL/article from the list to write your report. You can ONLY choose articles from this list. This list is changed every semester. You will receive one credit for each completed report. Reports on articles off this list will not receive credit. Try to choose an article that looks interesting to you.

1. The exact citation for the article, including its title, author(s) if provided, URL (direct link to the article), the date of the article, and the category under which it falls in the chart above (e.g. Anxiety).

2. An explanation of what the research was trying to find out.

3. A description of the methods that were used in the research.

4. A summary of the results.

5. Your evaluation of the paper, including what you learned from it.

6. A printout of the article.

Your reports should be two to three pages long, typewritten or word-processed, and double-spaced. This report should be turned in to your Psychology 101 instructor. You should keep a copy for your records. You can track your research credits at any time by logging into the Sona System and clicking on the MY SCHEDULE/CREDITS Tab. Don’t worry if you don’t see the credit right away; please give your instructor some time to read your paper.